I must confess ....

that I have never confessed to a priest before and I do not know exactly what is supposed to be done when one enters this.

Yesterday, I found myself at Quiapo Church and ended up entering one of these. Upon entering, I saw a tiny rectangular space and while I was looking around, a voice came from the other side. Apparently, there was a priest and he told me to kneel so we could start.

First thing I said was, "Uhm, so how do we go about this?"

The priest was flabbergasted. He sounded incredulous and I really couldn't blame him. I'm 32 and I still don't know what to do inside a confessional. Truth be told, if I wasn't so miserable, I would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

So he lectured me on how being a Catholic is, what one does inside a confessional, and he listened to me cry, rant, curse (yes, I cursed and most likely added to my list of sins) and I talked. At one point, I asked him if he doesn't get tired of listening to people's problems and amazingly, he was honest and said that yes he does get tired but that he lifts everything to God since God is the only one who can really help us.

There was also a point where some of my sins were apparently not normally forgivable and I asked in a shocked voice, "So you wouldn't bless me with forgiveness?" I was really sad at this point because I thought, "Holy Cow! Even a priest thinks I'm that bad!" Thankfully, he said that "Of course I will."

Whew. I don't know how I would have felt if he said no. I most likely would be either really mad or really sad.

Surprisingly, eventhough I had 32 years worth of sin to confess, I was given only 1 Lords Prayer, 1 Hail Mary, and 1 Glory Be to pray. Maybe its because when the priest asked me if I knew how to pray the rosary, I replied with a big fat "No."